


Snowfall

by Rhaized



Series: The Madonna and Baby [6]
Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass (2007)
Genre: Big London snowfall, Gen, Lyra can't contain her excitement, Lyra ends up throwing a snowball directly at Mrs. Coulter's face, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mrs. Coulter is most displeased, Mrs. Coulter still isn't a model parent, Mrs. Coulter takes her outside to play, They then end up in a game of cat and mouse across a snowy London
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:22:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27686879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhaized/pseuds/Rhaized
Summary: It's the first big snowfall of Lyra's entire lifetime, so she teaches Mrs. Coulter what it means to have a little fun outside in the snow.
Relationships: Lyra Belacqua & Marisa Coulter
Series: The Madonna and Baby [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998481
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	Snowfall

**Author's Note:**

> It snowed by me yesterday, and I spent my time by the fire with my tea dreaming about how Lyra and Mrs. Coulter would fare during a huge snowfall in London :) Hope you enjoy reading, and if you're in a snowy climate, hope you too have good memories of swimming through snow and hitting people with snowballs more harshly than you'd intended.

**Snowfall**

* * *

When Lyra woke up early one chilly January morning, shivering as she'd only worn a short-sleeved nightgown to bed, she almost didn't believe her eyes as she looked out the window at the still-darkened sky. 

"Is that  _ snow?"  _ she exclaimed aloud, as if doing so would somehow verify that she was, in fact, awake and it was, indeed, really and truly snowing outside. She crept closer to the window to check, her bare feet cold as she made her way over and peeked outside. 

Everywhere the eye could see was covered in snow—deep, thick, unforgiving snow lit by the bright lanterns of London. The wind was  _ howling  _ with it, too, blowing every which way like a balloon running out of air. Pan changed into an owl and fluttered closer to the window to take a better look. He gave a hoot as he pressed his beak against the glass and it steamed up in response. 

London was a few hours away from Oxford but it wasn't in a different  _ climate.  _ The winters were generally pretty mild here in Brytain, at least to Lyra's memory. She remembered it snowing before. She fondly recalled slipping and sliding on the roof of Jordan with Roger and throwing snowballs down at the unsuspecting and unappreciative Scholars. But she'd never experienced snow like  _ this,  _ with drifts upon drifts of it as the sky seemed to pour itself down onto the earth. This was the thing of stories and legends from the North, not her lived reality in boring, stuffy London with her Magisterium school and cold, drizzly rain throughout the winter. 

Yet, here it was: snowing what some of the kids at school would say 'cats and dogs.'

"Mrs.  _ Coulter  _ it's _ snowing!"  _ Without stopping to think, Lyra ran into her caregiver's room and pounced onto her bed. The woman jumped, moving her blindfold up away from her eyes and reaching her arms out until she found Lyra. She sighed then as she wrapped her hands around Lyra's and then opened her eyes, which fluttered heavily with sleep. Lyra realized it wasn't even four in the morning yet, and felt slightly guilty, but this was a very special circumstance, after all. 

"Good morning," Mrs. Coulter said sleepily, with just a hint of agitation flecking her grovely voice. 

"It's  _ snowing!"  _ Lyra repeated, taking Mrs. Coulter's hand and tugging ever so gently in an attempt to get her up and going. "Like,  _ really  _ snowing! I think the snow is as tall as I am out there."

"Oh, Lyra, what did I tell you about exaggerating?" Mrs. Coulter said crossly, pressing down on Lyra's hand before snatching hers away and laying back down. "It's still very early. We should go back to bed now before you have to get going to school."

"But we can't!" Lyra insisted. She couldn't blame Mrs. Coulter for not understanding. It was quite the unfathomable thing to imagine, really, that the city of London would undergo a snowfall so high and so severe. Snow like this happened across the Nordic countries and the wild lands of the North itself, not  _ here  _ in this part of Brytain _.  _ Lyra wouldn't believe it herself if she hadn't just seen it. "Let me open your curtains so you can see. It's incredible, how much snow is out there! It's all lit up by the lights."

"Don't you dare." In an instant the monkey had Pan scooped up and trapped in his arms, locked so securely and snugly that Pan couldn't move and couldn't change. "This isn't a circus, Lyra. People are trying to sleep."

"You mean  _ you _ are," Lyra mumbled, though she regretted it as she heard the monkey growl and felt him press his palm down on the top of Pan's head. Mrs. Coulter wasn't in the mood for her attitude, Lyra supposed. 

"If you won't be pacified then come over here and climb into bed," Mrs. Coulter sighed. She waved an arm over and Lyra headed over to her moodily, aware of the monkey still holding onto Pan uncomfortably tight. It was cruel, for Mrs. Coulter to treat her like this, in general but also right now in this moment as one of the most exciting things to ever happen to her was right outside in her very reach. 

_ She doesn't know,  _ Pan offered, gritting his teeth as the monkey grunted and moved them over to the foot of the bed, but Lyra wouldn't have it. Mrs. Coulter was missing out and not even giving Lyra a chance to explain. 

"I can't believe you're doing this to me," she sighed dramatically as she sunk into Mrs. Coulter's soft, feather-down bed. She'd only been in Mrs. Coulter's bed a few times, and it never failed to be the most comfortable thing she ever experienced. 

"Doing what?" Mrs. Coulter asked, the edge to her voice slightly eased as she shifted so that she had an arm wrapped solidly around Lyra. She pulled her closely to her and adjusted the blankets so that Lyra was entirely tucked into both Mrs. Coulter's side and under the warm duvet. 

"Depriving me of my childhood."

"Oh, hush."

"It's the biggest snowfall in all of the entire universe and here I am, sitting here with you!" 

"Is it so awful, to cuddle here with me?" 

"No," said Lyra quickly, aware of just how much she  _ did  _ actually enjoy doing this, albeit not during an event like the one before then. "But I—" 

"Shh," Mrs. Coulter soothed, moving to place a warm kiss on Lyra's forehead and snuggle down deeper under the covers with her. "Let's rest for a little bit now. If it's as big as you say, then it'll still be there once the sun is up. We can go see it later." Pan let out a small squeak from somewhere to their right, indicating his agreement, and Lyra simply scowled as she closed her eyes and found herself comforted despite all her protests. She listened to the slow and steady rhythm of Mrs. Coulter's breathing until she found herself dozing off entirely, her mind whirling with thoughts of sledding and snowball throwing and, oddly, Mrs. Coulter flying through the air like a witch from the North. 

When Lyra woke up a few hours later, Mrs. Coulter was out of bed already. Lyra exchanged an excited look with Pan, who was curled up in the crook of her knee as a little groundhog. This was it. This was their  _ chance.  _

"Do you see it?" she called out to no one in particular as she skidded onto the wooden flooring of the hallway, coming to a halt just outside the living room. Pan came right behind her, his fat little groundhog cheeks moving up and down. 

"I can't believe it," Mrs. Coulter breathed. She was wearing a long, teal silk nightgown wrapped up in a fuzzy white robe as she stared outside at the terrace with a cup of coffee in her left hand. There were, as Lyra had said,  _ drifts  _ of snow almost as tall as she was. And beyond the terrace, the skyline of London was peppered with snow as well. 

"I  _ told  _ you," Lyra let out, although her voice was soft as she came up over to Mrs. Coulter and took her free hand. 

"Well, I doubt you'll have school today, since I don't know  _ how  _ anyone is going to get out on the streets."

School. Lyra scrunched her nose at the mention. She'd really hated going to her new school, and found herself growing excited about what she could do if she had an entire day off from it. She could go out onto the terrace to play, of course, if they could manage to get the door open. More likely they'd need to go downstairs, where surely someone had cleared a path by the door that Lyra could use to lead out onto the rest of the snow in the courtyard right next door to the building and beyond. 

"When can I go play in it?" Lyra pressed. 

"Play in it?" Mrs. Coulter repeated. "Oh, Lyra, if your school is closed then I'm going to have to give your lessons here. There's so much to do still."

"Oh,  _ please,  _ Mrs. Coulter!" Lyra turned to gaze up at the woman with as much sweetness and innocence as her body could muster. For his part, Pan turned into a little red panda and purred grunted softly over at Mrs. Coulter and the monkey, tilting his head to one side. "When's this kind of snow ever gonna happen again? I  _ have  _ to go play in it. We can make it a...science experiment, if you want, or math. I'll measure how much is there and later read all about snow and its properties and whatever."

"And whatever," Mrs. Coulter mused back, her face warming into a smile as she cupped Lyra's face. Her blue eyes were soft and full of kindness in a way that made Lyra forget any bad thing the woman had ever done to her. "Alright. You can go out for a little bit, then."

Lyra jumped into the air, kicking her ankles together and laughing as Pan soared around the room as a triumphant eagle. 

"And you will, too, right?" Lyra asked as she ran over to her room to grab her furs and her snowsuit that they'd purchased for their trip to the North. 

"Me? Oh, no, Lyra. I have work to do."

"Bur just  _ look  _ at it!" Lyra came back into the living room to dramatically gesture toward the window again. "When have you ever seen this?" 

"Plenty of times," said Mrs. Coulter stuffily, "from my trips to the North."

"But  _ here _ ?" 

"I haven't," the woman said then, frowning slightly as she looked out the window. "I've never seen it snow like this here in London."

"And  _ I  _ haven't experienced it at  _ all,  _ and it'll be so much fun to have someone to experience it with!" 

"You want me there with you?" Mrs. Coulter asked. She considered Lyra with bright, wide eyes, as if the thought were magical. 

"Yeah!" If Lyra were to be honest, Mrs. Coulter wasn't  _ exactly  _ the companion she wanted to jump around in snow drifts with and, if circumstances allowed, scale some of the snowy building ledges. She'd rather play with Jimmy, who at least would be game to listen to everything she said and follow her to the depths of the ocean if she asked. Mrs. Coulter wouldn't be so  _ obedient _ in that way, or imaginative probably. But she was better than no company at all. "I really do. Will you please, Mrs. Coulter?" 

Surprisingly, her caregiver agreed and soon the both of them were getting ready for a morning out in the snow. Lyra jimmied herself into her furs and her pants and her boots and met Mrs. Coulter out into the hallway, Pan pacing restlessly in front of her as an arctic fox. 

"Ready?" Mrs. Coulter called as she came out of her bedroom. Lyra blinked as she walked out. She wore a long red dress with a tall pair of gray boats. Her coat, which was a furred suede number, was on but not buttoned and she donned a closely-stitched red cap that fit sideways on her head. 

"You look so pretty," Lyra blurted out.  _ Pretty, but not dressed to tumble face-first into a snowbank.  _

"Thank you, dear. You look cute yourself in your new winter clothes. Shall we see if we can get out now?" 

It was a struggle, making their way out of the apartment building. The footman had told Mrs. Coulter that he didn't think it was such a good idea, since even if they  _ could _ pry the door open some of it could spill inside. But she insisted sweetly that they had to try, as she and Lyra had places to go and people to see. He gave in and helped the two of them and their daemons pull until they got it open and Lyra slipped outside, moving to then pull from the outside to give them more leverage. 

"Just  _ look  _ at it all!" 

As they got outside, Lyra could finally and fully see the winter scene before her. Indeed towers of snow seemed to spill over from every direction, making it impossible to walk in some areas without plowing directly into several feet of snow. Mrs. Coulter gasped as Lyra went charging fearlessly into one such section. She laughed as the slow enveloped her body and struck her full in the face. Pan changed into a polar bear and barreled his way through himself, moving much faster than her. 

"Lyra, come back here!" Mrs. Coulter was calling, but Lyra ignored her as she ventured deeper and deeper into the vast field of snow and ice. She couldn't help it; it was as if the very winter wind was calling her name. It probably wasn't wise to do so as Mrs. Coulter would no doubt get angry at her, but Lyra couldn't think straight. She saw the snow and the challenge ahead of her and was lost in the chase and the adventure of it all. 

She soon couldn't hear Mrs. Coulter's voice anymore as she pressed onward, so deep and so far she didn't even know where she was. 

_ Help me out, won't you?  _ she shot over to Pan. He took off into the air as a hawk now, scoping out their surroundings. 

_ We're by that park near the flat,  _ he told her.  _ Go to your right and you'll be near the little shed where the bathrooms are. If you can climb it then you'll be able to see better!  _

_ And Mrs. Coulter?  _ Lyra thought, doing as he said and practically swimming as she punched the snow in front of her and strode forward. 

_ Can't see her,  _ Pan said after a beat,  _ but she'll probably be here soon. She wasn't happy when you took off like that.  _

A few minutes later and Lyra finally reached the shed. With a burst of energy she hauled herself up and then collapsed against the roof of the structure, allowing herself a few minutes to catch her breath. It was just like swimming except with  _ solid, frozen water  _ in front of her, which was more goring than she'd realized. 

_ "Lyra Marcella Belacqua!"  _

Out of nowhere, it seemed, Mrs. Coulter was there. Lyra peeked down and saw her glaring furiously up at Lyra. Her boots and her dress were all covered in snow, as she probably had to wade through some unbroken snow herself to catch up to Lyra. The monkey was hopping around on his feet impatiently, too, his eyes locked on Pan, who was still in his bird form. 

"Oh, there you are!" Lyra decided to call out then, cheekily. She offered Mrs. Coulter a grin. The intensity of the woman's glare wiped it straight off, however. 

"What happened to being  _ together  _ in the snow?" 

"Well, we are  _ now. _ "

"After you ran away against my wishes. And now I find you huddling on a  _ roof?  _ Get down at once."

"But it's nice up here," Lyra countered. Pan heard the golden monkey start to growl now, and Lyra knew she was testing Mrs. Coulter's patience and her good mood. But, she couldn't find it in her to stop now. "You get a whole new view of the area."

" _ Now,"  _ Mrs. Coulter repeated, her voice angry enough to melt right through the snow. 

Lyra refused, of course, so then the monkey sprung. He climbed up to the roof only to find Pan flapping just out of his reach, taunting him. With that distraction, Lyra gathered up some snow in her gloved hands and then molded it into the most perfect ball of snow she'd ever dreamed of making. Biting her lip, she put it behind her back, stood, looked at Mrs. Coulter, and then threw it. 

Lyra couldn't have planned it better: the snowball hit Mrs. Coulter smackdab in the middle of her face. It caused her to totter backwards a bit and gasp as she puffed out the snow that no doubt had lodged itself in her mouth. Lyra laughed just then—a booming, excited laugh that stemmed from witnessing something truly ridiculous and entertaining. She knew she'd pay gravely for this act later, but in that moment, it was too good not to celebrate. 

"You-little-brat," Mrs. Coulter grunted, and before Lyra knew it the woman herself was climbing up the shed directly toward Lyra.

With help from Pan, Lyra timed it perfectly. She jumped off the shed into a new pile of fresh snow as soon as Mrs. Coulter has climbed on and jumped into a standing position. It gave her enough time to wade further away still, Pan guiding her through until they were out on the open street now which had been partially cleared. 

It felt good to feel her feet pounding on pavement again as she raced forward. Her boots had excellent traction and worked as well on ground as in the snow. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Mrs. Coulter pelting over to her, too. 

_ Man, she's fast!  _ Lyra thought, and Pan agreed, squawking worriedly as they neared another big patch of unbroken snow. 

Lyra's strategy for this next part was perhaps pushing it too far, but she was already in deep enough trouble as it was, so she figured it couldn't hurt. Pan changed into the biggest bird they knew of: the andean condor. It was a big bird from South America that resembled a dinosaur more than anything else, and he was able to gather a massive amount of snow with his claws that he then threw directly down at Mrs. Coulter as she entered the snow field. The gravity of it caused her to fall straight down into the snow, almost entirely buried with it as the golden monkey helplessly jumped just off to the side. 

_ "LYRA!"  _

She'd  _ definitely _ gone too far now. Lyra sighed as she stopped in her tracks and turned back around, Pan hovering over where Mrs. Coulter was so she knew where to go. When she arrived Mrs. Coulter was still on the ground throwing snow off of her body. Lyra bent down to help, moving one particularly large piece from Mrs. Coulter's shoulder. Mrs. Coulter then reached out and dragged Lyra harshly down to the ground with her. 

"You insolent, vile creature," Mrs. Coulter hissed, taking Lyra's head and pushing it down roughly into the snow. Lyra cried out, her legs kicking behind her, but Mrs. Coulter held her still. "You're such a bad little girl. Do you know that?" 

'I'm sorry!" Lyra choked out once Mrs. Coulter released her. She coughed up a piece of ice that was mixed with dirt and grass.  _ Disgusting _ ."I didn't mean it!" __

"Oh, you did." Mrs. Coulter gripped Lyra's arms so tightly then that they  _ hurt. _ She was aware of the monkey doing a similar thing to Pan. "You knew exactly what you were doing. You planned it. You acted deliberately of your own free and open will."

"Can we actually measure the snow and do our experiments now?" Lyra dared to ask after a few minutes. They were walking on the street and Mrs. Coulter was still gripping Lyra's arm as if they were connected. 

"Absolutely not," Mrs. Coulter spat. "You won't be doing  _ anything  _ for the foreseeable future, young lady. You're grounded."

When they finally made their way back to the apartment (which was no easy feat since they'd wandered very far and Mrs. Coulter refused to let Pan fly ahead to guide them), Lyra was most disappointed as Mrs. Coulter locked her not in her  _ own  _ bedroom but one of the stuffy guest bedrooms. 

"You'll remain here all day. I'll bring you some soup at lunch time."

"This  _ sucks."  _ Lyra kicked the wooden bed frame and then flopped down on the bed, looking out at the snow-filled sight teasing her from the window. 

"Was it worth it?" Pan asked her, coming up to tuck himself under her arm as a black and white barn cat. 

"Yeah," Lyra said, remembering swimming through a sea of snow and the look on Mrs. Coulter's face as the snowball collided with her nose. Lyra couldn't help but laugh. "Definitely worth it."


End file.
